Ben came down quietly through the grove behind the house, slipped round to the ell door and ascended to his bare room without being observed by any one about the place. It did not take him long again to draw out his battered trunk and pack it with his few possessions.

He then found before him an unpleasant duty from which he shrank; Mrs. Jones must again be told that he was going away.

It is not remarkable that he hesitated over this, or that as the shadows once more thickened in that room he sat for a long time on his trunk, his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, gazing blankly at the one leaden window.

To his ears came the sound of wheels, which seemed to stop before the house. A few minutes later Jimmy’s voice called from the foot of the stairs:

“Ben, Ben, you up there?”

He opened the door. “What’s wanted, Jimmy?”

“I didn’t know you was home,” said the lame boy, in some surprise. “I didn’t see y’u come, an’ I was watchin’. They’s somebody down here wants to see y’u.”

“Wants to see me?” he exclaimed, unable to repress a feeling of apprehension. “Who is it?”

“It’s Roger Eliot,” answered the boy below, “an’ he’s jest got a dandy hoss an’ carriage. He said you must be here, but I didn’t think y’u was.”

“Roger Eliot!” muttered Ben, descending at once. “What can he want?”

“I dunno,” admitted Jimmy, limping after him as he left the house. “He jest tole me to tell y’u to come out.”

“Hello, Stone!” called Roger from the carriage in front of the gate. “Come, get in here and take a little drive with me.”

Greatly surprised by this invitation, Ben hesitated until the boy in the carriage repeated his words urgently, but with a touch of that command which had made him a leader among the boys of the village and captain of the football team.

“I—I haven’t much time,” faltered Stone; but he wonderingly took his place at Roger’s side and was whirled away, regretfully watched by Jimmy, who hung on the sagging gate and stared after the carriage until it turned the corner under the street-light opposite the post office.

In front of the post office Chub Tuttle was munching peanuts and telling Sile Crane and Sleuth Piper of the wonderful manner in which Stone had defended Amy Eliot from Tige Fletcher’s dogs. He had reached the most thrilling portion of the tale when the carriage containing Roger and Ben turned the corner.

“Jinks!” exclaimed Crane. “There he is naow with Roger. Where d’you s’pose they’re going?”

“The mystery is easily solved,” declared Piper at once. “My deduction of the case is as follows: Eliot has a sister; this sister is attacked by the vicious dogs of one Fletcher; Stone rushes to her defense; he beats off the said dogs and kills one of them; the before-mentioned Eliot takes his before-mentioned sister home; he relates to his folks how she was rescued from dire peril and a fearful fate by the before-mentioned Stone; at once her parents wish to see and thank the said Stone; Roger is dispatched post haste for the hero of the thrilling and deadly struggle; said hero is carried off in triumph to the palatial residence of the before-mentioned parents. I’ll stake my professional reputation on the correctness of the deduction.”

“Guess you’re right, Sleuth,” said Chub. “Roger thinks an awful lot of his sister, and he choked and couldn’t seem to find words to say when he tried to thank Stone.”

“Say,” drawled Crane, “perhaps this Stone ain’t such an awful bad feller after all. Jack Walker tol’ me he pitched into Hunk Rollins hammer an’ tongs ’cause Hunk was plaguing Jimmy Jones, and he said he was a-going to tell the professor the whole business. Bern Hayden is pretty top-lofty, and he’s down on Stone for somethin’, so he wants to drive Stone outer the school. I tell you fellers right here that I hope, by Jinks! that Stone don’t go.”

“’Sh!” hissed Sleuth mysteriously, glancing all around, as if fearful of being overheard. “Draw back from this bright glare of light, where we may be spied upon by watchful and suspicious eyes.”

When they had followed him into the shadow at the corner of the building and he had peered and listened some moments, he drew them close together and, in a low, hoarse voice, declared:

“It is perfectly apparent to my trained observation that there is more in this case than appears on the surface. I have struck a scent, which I am working up. I pledge you both to secrecy; betray me at your peril. Between Hayden and Stone there is a deadly and terrible feud. Sometime in the dark and hidden past a great wrong was committed. I feel it my duty to solve the problem and right the wrong. I shall know neither rest nor sleep until my task is accomplished and justice is done.”

“Well,” said Sile, in his quaint, drawling way, “you may git allfired tired an’ sleepy, Sleuth; but I agree with Chub in thinkin’ it pritty likely Roger is a-takin’ Stone up to his haouse.”

The boys were right in this conviction, although Ben did not suspect whither he was being carried until they were passing the Methodist church and approaching Roger’s home.

“I am taking you to dinner,” said Roger, in answer to Ben’s questioning. “Mother asked me to bring you in order that she may thank you for your brave defense of Amy against old Fletcher’s dogs; and father wishes to see you, too.”

Ben was filled with sudden consternation.

“Oh, say, Eliot,” he exclaimed, “I can’t go there!”

“Why not, old man? My mother is an invalid, you know, and she can’t come to you. It will be a pleasure to her to meet you, and she has few enough pleasures in life.”

“But—but,” stammered Ben, remembering that Urian Eliot was known to be Oakdale’s richest man and lived in the finest house in the village, “I am not prepared—my clothes——”

“Nonsense!” heartily returned Roger. “You will find us plain people who do not go in for ceremony and style. Your clothes are all right. Just you be easy and make yourself at home.”

Little did Roger know of his companion’s inward quaking and apprehension, but it seemed too late to get out of it then, and Stone was compelled to face the ordeal.

A stableman took charge of the horse and carriage, and they were met at the door by Amy Eliot, who had been watching for them.

“Here he is, Sis,” said Roger. “I captured him and brought him off without letting him know what was up, or I’d never got him here.”

Amy shyly, yet impulsively, took Ben’s hand.

“You were so good to come and save me from those dreadful dogs!” she said. “I was nearly frightened to death. I know they would have eaten me up.”

As Ben’s chained tongue was seeking to free itself a stout, square, bald-headed, florid man, with a square-trimmed tuft of iron-gray whiskers on his chin, appeared in the doorway of a lighted room off the hall, and a healthy, hearty voice cried:

“So this is the hero! Well, well, my boy, give me your hand! I’ve heard all about it from Roger and Amy. And you actually killed old Fletcher’s big dog with a club! Remarkable! Amazing! For that alone you deserve a vote of thanks from every respectable, peaceable citizen of this town. But we owe you the heaviest debt. Our Amy would have been mangled by those miserable beasts but for your promptness and courage. Lots of boys would have hesitated about facing those dogs.”

“This is my father, Stone,” said Roger, as Urian Eliot was earnestly shaking the confused lad’s hand.

Ben managed huskily to murmur that he was glad to meet Mr. Eliot.

From the adjoining room a woman’s low, pleasant voice called:

“Why don’t you bring him in? Have you forgotten me?”

“No, mother,” answered Roger, taking Ben’s cap from his hand and hanging it on the hall tree.

“No, indeed!” declared Mr. Eliot, as he led the boy into a handsome room, where there were long shelves of books, and great comfortable leather-covered chairs, and costly Turkish rugs on the hardwood floor, with a wood fire burning cheerfully in an open fireplace, and a frail, sweet-faced woman sitting amid piled-up cushions in an invalid’s chair near a table, on which stood a shaded lamp and lay many books and magazines. “Here he is, mother.”

“Yes, here he is, mother,” said Roger, smiling that rare, slow smile of his, which illumined his face and made it seem peculiarly attractive and generous; “but I’m sure I’d never made a success of it in bringing him if I had told him what I wanted in the first place.”

“My dear boy,” said Mrs. Eliot, taking Ben’s hand in both her own thin hands, “mere words are quite incapable of expressing my feelings, but I wish I might somehow make you know how deeply grateful I am to you for your noble and heroic action in saving my helpless little girl from those cruel dogs.”

At the sound of her voice Ben was moved, and the touch of her hands thrilled him. Her tender, patient eyes gazed deep into his, and that look alone was a thousand times more expressive of her gratitude than all the words in the language, though chosen by a master speaker. He thought of his own kind, long-suffering mother, now at rest, and there was a mist in his eyes.

“Believe me,” he managed to say, “I didn’t do it for thanks, and I——”

“I am sure you didn’t,” she interrupted. “You did it just because it was the most natural thing for a brave boy like you to do.”

It was quite astonishing to him to have any one regard him as brave and noble, for all his life until now everybody had seemed to look on him as something quite the opposite; and, in spite of what he had done, he could not help thinking he did not deserve to be treated so kindly and shown so much gratitude.

“Sit down, Stone, old man,” invited Roger, pushing up a chair.

“Yes, sit down,” urged Mrs. Eliot. “I want to talk with you.”

In a short time she made him feel quite at ease, which also seemed surprising when he thought of it; for to him, accustomed to poverty all his life, that library was like a room in a palace. And these people were such as circumstances and experience had led him to believe would feel themselves in every way his superiors, yet they had apparently received him as their equal and made no show of holding themselves far above him.

Urian Eliot, who stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire and his hands behind him, joined freely in the conversation, and Ben could not help wondering if this was really the rich mill-owner whom the greater number of the people of Oakdale regarded with an air of awe. He was very free and easy and plain-spoken, yet he had the reputation of being a hard business man, close-fisted to the point of penuriousness in all his dealings.

Amy came and stood close beside Ben, while Roger sat on the broad arm of a chair, gravely satisfied in his demeanor.

They talked of many things, and there was no suggestion of idle curiosity on the part of Mrs. Eliot when she questioned the visitor about himself.

Ben told of his home with Jacob Baldwin, an unsuccessful farmer, who lived some ten miles from Oakdale, explaining how he had done his best to carry on the little farm while Mr. Baldwin was down with rheumatism, how he had planned and saved to get money to attend school, and how he had finally set by a small sum that he believed was sufficient to carry him through a term at the academy by strict economy.

Listening to this, Urian Eliot nodded repeatedly and rubbed his square hands behind his broad back with an atmosphere of satisfaction. When the boy had finished, Mr. Eliot surprised him by saying:

“That’s the right sort of stuff—it’s the kind that real men are made of. I like it. I was a poor boy myself, and I had a pretty hard time of it cutting cordwood and hoop-poles in winter and working wherever I could earn a dollar in summer; but I stuck to it, and I managed to pull through all right. You stick to it, my boy, and you’ll win. I admire your grit.”

Such complimentary words from a man like Urian Eliot meant a great deal, and they sent a glow over Ben. For the time he forgot the cloud hanging over him, forgot Bernard Hayden and the blighting past, forgot that he was an outcast who could never again cross the threshold of Oakdale academy save to face disgrace and expulsion.

Finally dinner was announced, and Roger carefully wheeled his mother in her chair from the library to the dining room, while Urian Eliot followed, offering advice and calling to Ben to come.

Amy’s little hand stole into Ben’s, and she pressed close to his side, looking up at him.

“I’m going to sit by you,” she said. “I like you, Ben. I think you’re just the best and bravest fellow in the world—except Roger,” she finished, as an afterthought.

It was a happy hour for Ben.